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The death penalty protects Singaporeans and has saved lives in Singapore, Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam said in a podcast interview with the BBC.

A "deterrent" for would-be drug traffickers

The minister was making his point on the deterrence brought about by the death penalty on drug trafficking crimes in the country.

Speaking to BBC journalist Stephen Sackur on Hardtalk, a current affairs interview programme, Shanmugam said capital punishment is "one aspect of a whole series of measures" that the government employs to deal with the drug abuse problem.

And the reason it's imposed is because "there's clear evidence that it is a serious deterrent for would-be drug traffickers", he said, adding that traffickers want to "make money", and in the process of doing so, is "damaging the lives of drug users, their families", even "seriously destroyed".

“Capital punishment...it's a serious deterrent for would-be drug traffickers" says Singapore’s Home Affairs Minister

K Shanmugam says he doesn’t have “any doubts” about Singapore’s use of the death penalty despite controversyhttps://t.co/vCdYnprMfE

📻 https://t.co/qNUM1wR8Px pic.twitter.com/btWoie8R7T

— BBC HARDtalk (@BBCHARDtalk) June 29, 2022

"Devastating" impact of drugs

Shanmugam further raised examples of the "devastating impact" of drugs worldwide, pointing out that an estimated 500,000 people die each year due to reasons linked to drug abuse, according to a 2021 World Health Organization report.

The minister has previously cited data collected from a study by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) that found a reduction in the amount of opium and cannabis trafficked into the country in the four-year period after the mandatory death penalty for trafficking more than 1,200g of opium and 500g of cannabis was introduced in 1990.

In his written reply to the parliamentary question posed by Member of Parliament Jamus Lim of the Workers' Party on the deterrent effect of a life sentence as compared to the death penalty, Shanmugam also cited another study by MHA that revealed drug traffickers who said they were aware of and were mindful of the severe legal consequences had limited their trafficking behaviour.

Some back and forth on whether Nagaenthran's execution is justified

Sackur also raised the execution of Malaysian citizen Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, who was caught smuggling 43g of heroin into Singapore – more than the threshold amount of 15g.

Bringing up Nagaenthran's IQ of 69 – something that international news outlets and rights groups have highlighted – Sackur said he was caught with "the equivalent of three tablespoons of heroin" as he entered Singapore.

In response, Shanmugam cited the judgment given by the High Court, that he had "the working of a criminal mind", and had made "a deliberate... calculated decision to make money, to bring the drugs in".

When interjected by Sackur, who called attention to Nagaenthran's IQ of 69 again, the law minister said the psychiatrist called by the defence confirmed that he was "not intellectually disabled".

The High Court had come to this conclusion after assessing evidence given by a panel of four psychiatric and psychological experts, including a psychiatrist called on behalf of Nagaenthran.

To bolster his argument, Shanmugam further raised the example of the U.S. executions in October 2021, where the two men’s lawyers argued that they were similarly intellectually disabled, with an IQ range similar to Nagaenthran's.

"The men knew what they were doing for those reasons. Now, I don't see the BBC–" he said, before Sackur interjected to say it's about "reputation" and the "presentation of Singapore to the world".

In addition, Sackur gave the example of United Nations experts saying recently that the execution of persons with intellectual disabilities for drugs-related offences "represent the violation of the right to life" and amount to "unlawful killings".

Death penalty has "saved" thousands of lives

When Shanmugam repeated his argument about Nagaenthran and the two men whom the U.S. executed, Sackur asked him to look at the death penalty on its merits, instead of "pointing to other countries which may have their own flaws".

This was when Shanmugam said that the death penalty has saved lives,

"In the 1990s, we were arresting about 6,000 people per year. 30 years later today, there are more drugs around the region. Singapore is wealthier. Afghanistan and Myanmar are among the largest producers of drugs in the world.

We are a logistics centre. We would be completely swamped. The UNODC said that this place is swimming in meth and a record haul of one billion meth tablets were seized in Southeast Asia. We are in that situation."

Sackur seemed unconvinced in tone and said Shanmugam – and by extension, Singapore – will be challenged by the international community on the standards that have been set in the country's judicial system.

Shanmugam, however, remained undeterred and continued to give the example of the Netherlands, where the police union chief likened it to "a narco state with a parallel economy controlled by drug gangs, shootings and killings".

"You look at Singapore: law and order, we are number one. World bank index–" he said, before Sackur interjected to highlight the fact that the majority of the 60 people on death row in Singapore currently have been convicted of drug offences.

Acknowledging the numbers, Shanmugam said the government has "also saved thousands of lives", and proceeded to expound on his answer by saying the country is now arresting about 3,000 people per year.

Before he finished his sentence, he was interrupted by Sackur, who drew attention to the deterioration of Singapore's international reputation due to the implications of the death penalty and high-profile cases like Nagaenthran.

Questioned the BBC's perceived skewed coverage

Doubling down on his stance, Shanmugam emphasised that it is "the lives of Singaporeans and protecting Singaporeans" that is key to this policy.

He also directed the focus on the BBC, saying they "ran four articles from October of last year to March of this year" on the issue, with a headline "overtaking the Ukraine war", but had failed to cover "the thousands of lives that are at stake from drug trafficking".

At this point, Sackur said Shanmugam had made his case, but the minister carried on his critique of the BBC's reporting, saying,

"I think the media reporting and all the things that you've quoted, make this point – that a single hanging of a drug trafficker, to misquote a well-known quote, a single hanging of a drug trafficker is a tragedy; a million deaths from drug abuse is a statistic. I think that's what this shows."

Drawing the segment on the mandatory death penalty regarding drug trafficking to a close, Sackur appeared to summarise Shanmugam's stance, that Singapore is "saving lives because drugs cost lives", to which Shanmugam repeated that he can "prove it".

You can read Shanmugam's full interview with no omissions by the BBC here in a transcript provided by MHA.

The last time a Singaporean minister sat down with Sackur in a Hardtalk interview was in 2017, when Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong talked about how Singapore is navigating a wide range of international and domestic issues in uncertain times.

Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam had also previously been interviewed by Sackur at the 45th St. Gallen Symposium in Switzerland, where he responded to questions on Singapore's press freedom, as well as its governance model that Sackur had described as "authoritarianism".

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Top image adapted via the BBC & gov.sg/YouTube